The great German theologian Martin Luther was once asked what were the three greatest virtues of a man of God. He said the first one was humility, the second was humility and the third was humility. This is so true. If we want to be successful farmers, we need to use the tools of the trade God gave us – the most important of which is to be humble.
I arrived in South Africa from Zambia on 9 August 1977 and the only thing that got me through was my desperation. I took my hat in my hand, went to my neighbours and asked for help. We had bought a piece of overgrown wattle bush and there was no water, no lights, and no house, but some very dear neighbours rose to the occasion.
I did not tell them that I came from one of the greatest maize-growing areas in Africa, which I still believe could be the breadbasket of Africa. I did not tell them that I went to agricultural college in Scotland, I did not tell them that I had been farming since I was 19 years old. I said, “I need help” and they bent over backwards to help me.
There is nothing more ugly than an arrogant person and an arrogant farmer is even worse. We so often think we’ve done something great when we see our wonderful crop, but we don’t realise that without the rain, without the protection from hail and flood, we would have nothing. Yet the way we strut around you’d think we actually did it all ourselves.
We have some farmers in our Greytown area who are very humble men. When they come to visit, they never speak about what they are doing; they always want to know what you are doing. In Micah 6:8 a very clear instruction to us is: “What does the Lord require of us but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God?”
If we do that, I can assure you we will succeed in our agricultural ventures because people respond to humility and shy away from pride and arrogance.
The art of taking advice
Many a time on the farm when I was completely stumped and did not know what to do, I would humble myself and ask my workers what they thought. Nine times out of 10 they gave me the right answer. But I’ve met farmers who are not prepared to “lower”’ themselves to ask counsel from their farmworkers and as a result, they make one blunder after another and end up bankrupt.
A farmer once came from the Free State to farm in the Midlands. Local farmers gathered around and said, “You need to spray herbicides to control your weeds because we have high rainfall, and sometimes it’s hard for tractors and implements to get into the fields.” He disregarded all this and he said he’d continue to farm in the way he’d been brought up.
But in the Free State they farm with wide rows and have much less rain. When the rain came to the Midlands, he couldn’t get in to cultivate mechanically. The weeds took over and choked his crop. Within three years he left the district a broken man.
So let us continue
to walk in humility
and let the Lord exalt us through our godly farming. – Angus Buchan |fw
